Green Shield Canada is a local company gone national in a big way and on Wednesday night, it got some recognition for it.

Over the past five decades, Green Shield has grown from managing the retirement plans of about 100 Windsor auto workers to a customer base of 2.7 million Canadians. President and CEO Steve Bradie said the secret to its success is putting customers first.

“It’s a commitment to doing things a little differently from everyone else, quite frankly,” Bradie said. “It’s not about maximizing profits. It’s about doing what’s right for our customers, day in and day out.”

The 24th annual Windsor-Essex Business Excellence Awards recognized Green Shield Canada with its Believe award for contributing to the local economy at Wednesday night’s gala.

More than 800 members of Windsor’s business community gathered at Caesars Windsor to celebrate other local success stories at the event organized by the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Sponsors — including the Windsor Star as the title sponsor — presented a total of 12 awards throughout the night, which had a retro James Bond-Mad Men theme. Dressed in heels, dresses, suits and ties, people took the opportunity to wine, dine, network and congratulate the nominees.

Tom O’Brien and Debbie Meloche planned to start an easygoing life in the county after retiring from PriceWaterhouseCoopers and buying the farm that became Cooper’s Hawk Vineyards. They started growing grapes, but had difficulty selling them, so they started making wine.

“I had no plans to open a winery,” O’Brien said. “It was a hobby farm.”

In just three years since it opened in 2011, the winery has grown into not just a vineyard, but a venue, putting on dozens of events each year including a series of concerts. Their efforts landed them the tourism and hospitality award.

Meloche said the experience has taught her that anything’s possible. “We can do this. We’ve gone from being tax accountants to tourism and hospitality.”

The innovation award went to Kingsville’s Liqui-Force Services, a company that’s come up with a better way to repair sewers. Instead of digging up the road, causing traffic chaos and headaches for homeowners, Liqui-Force sends a robot down the manholes to find and remove tree roots and other problems.

Liqui-Force president Jeff Lewis said his company’s method of sewer repair is about 25 per cent cheaper than digging. That saves towns and cities money, which ultimately means taxpayers save money too.

“We fix sewers. That’s not totally glamorous. But I am surrounded by a bunch of nutty guys who like to make fixing sewers fun,” Lewis said.

Well-known lawyer Peter Hrastovec took home the professional of the year award. He said the gala is an opportunity to congratulate all the people doing great things in Windsor-Essex.

“This is just about recognizing all the talent we have in this community,” he said. “I’m passionate about this region.”

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I don’t know about impossible, but given that it’s taken almost 20 years to churn out five instalments of this series – something the early Bond franchise managed in six years, and the 1960s M:I TV show in just six weeks – these missions are certainly a lot of work